Shimizu Kai
by skyflyte12
Summary: The disappearance of one orphan in a village as large as konohagakure passes unnoticed, and this is what Danzo had been counting on. Kai, unaware of his magical origins, is abducted into a walk of life he never wanted anything to do with. HP/Naruto
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Harry Potter.

Summary: When a baby with a strange scar was found on the streets of the shinobi village Konohagakure, he was immediately put into the nearest orphanage. Harry Potter, saviour of the Wizarding World, inexplicitly disappeared before he could be found by his relatives. In a village full of ninja, where the orphanage regularly cycles children showing aptitude for the shinobi arts into their Military Academy at young ages, what is a kid who hates the idea of being a ninja to do?

* * *

Prologue

Chapter 1

**•◊ΰ◊•**

The Great Hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the present moment was more comparable to something out of a horror movie than an assembly of the school.

Candles flickered wildly, futilely attempting to properly light the room and failing against the black ceiling that was occasionally seared with vivid lighting that sliced down to the earth from the clouds, and afterwards the rumbling thunder jarringly loud against the unnatural silence of the body of people that gathered in the semi-dark.

Faces of students all gazed as one towards the lone man who was standing powerfully in front of the Head table, each and every one riveted by the strength and tenacity threaded visibly throughout the Headmaster's bearing; the _power_ that exuded from him almost tangible to even the youngest.

Another deafening roar of thunder shattered the tense atmosphere and the white-haired man adjusted his half-moon spectacles, his light-blue gaze filled with more intensity than many of those gathered at the school had ever seen.

At one of the tables a boy had his vivid green eyes fixed in a deceptively-insolent stare upon the old man, observing him in silence even as something that had provoked his hard-earned instincts was screaming at him that he should interfere and do something to stop the man from speaking. It was a feeling that told him that something was going to happen that would make his life far more complicated in the future.

The growling thunder finished and the hall was left in the dead silence that descends immediately after the removal of overwhelming noise.

The aged wizard opened his mouth and spoke in a voice that was soft and yet held an edge of _some _emotion that was only interpreted by the man himself; "We are entering into a dark time. As you have all just seen, the Dark Lord Voldemort has indeed arisen."

A shiver went through his spectators, emotions intense and varying washing over the students of the most prominent Light school of Europe. Gasps were muffled at the name that they had all been conditioned to fear; the name of one who was once a man that had come back to haunt Britain once again.

A flash of lighting split the clouds, leading to the brief harsh illumination of all in the room, making it easy to see the horrified expressions displayed by most of their number.

Dumbledore held up one hand, commanding an instant cessation of the hissing whispers and hysterical exclamations that had dispersed the deathly silence experienced before the blunt announcement.

Ice blue eyes surveyed the students, somehow managing to meet every pair of eyes. The old man continued on in a softer voice, forcing many students to strain their ears to pick up his next sentence, "The Dark Lord has risen again, yes. But there is still hope."

The crash of thunder and subsequent silence highlighted the unnatural stillness of those in the room, all of whom were not sure what the man was hinting at.

Dumbledore started talking, even as another vicious streak of lightning brought the room into sharp relief once again. "Yes, we still have hope for a victory against Lord Voldemort. We shall triumph because we still have the person who vanquished Voldemort all those years ago amongst us."

The Headmaster's eyes scanned the crowd and settled on those piercing green eyes that widened in sudden furious realisation.

It only took four words to break the enormous room full of people from their jarring unnatural silence.

"We have Harry Potter."

•◊**ΰ◊•**

_Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this._

_This is actually from way down in the story, so it doesn't exactly explain much, but I put it in as a teaser-type thing – you know, like a movie trailer show the best stuff first and then hold everything else back until the ending (lol)._

_Please review, it would be nice to know if you don't want to read this or just to hear your thoughts on my rather melodramatic opening_

_This is gonna be a Naruto crossover, so keep that in mind :)_

_Oh, I also warn that the first bunch of chapters will be centred round the Naruto-verse, so if you couldn't stand that, don't read this. Eventually, the story should be split evenly between them._

_Skyflyte12_


	2. The Hidden Countries

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Harry Potter

Warning: There is swearing/crude language in this story from this point on. (Just thought I should give a heads up) Oh, also that I can't and have never spoken or written the Japanese language, so I'm gonna apologise in advance for the inevitable butchering. If anyone finds really bad mistakes, I'd be happy to fix em' up.

Posted: Friday, 27 November 2009

The Hidden Countries

Chapter 2

**•◊ΰ◊•**

Run.

Run as fast and far as possible.

Run for your life.

Eyes widen as they focus on the path that they are taking, discovering that there is no way to avoid the imminent collision with the large man standing in the middle of the street.

//Crash!//

The spectacle catches the eyes of all the people nearby and they watch as the small black-haired, green eyed boy struggles to quickly extricate himself from the tangle with the man.

The young boy yells "Sorry, jijii!" At the man before he stares back over his shoulder and yelps when a large man rounds the corner with an outraged expression, shaking his fist at the boy and shouting, "Get back here ya no-good thievin' gaki! When I get my hands on you I'll…"

Apparently the boy didn't want to discover just what the shopkeeper would do to him as he tucked the loaf of bread under his arm and shot off down the street, this time paying more attention to where he was going.

An impassive face from the rooftops had been watching the scene, facial features never shifting and with no emotions to speak of. He disappeared with this information to report to his leader.

The man that had been bowled over would just assume he had misplaced his money while shopping when he later noticed it missing.

**•◊ΰ◊•**

The black haired boy managed to slip away from his pursuer and made his way to the place that had been as close to a home for him lately – the top of the Hokage Monument. It was a fair distance, especially for a civilian, but the boy had long ago adjusted to such long runs, more for survival than anything.

He sat down on a large stone that was a little ways away from the edge of the large faces, enjoying the view.

_He_ thought that everyone should go up there, but more often than not the villagers did not have the energy or inclination to travel the long road up to the top of the mountain, and he gathered that shinobi had better things to do than sit around and stare at scenery – not to mention they seemed to find the big stone faces something like a religious symbol to them, and he'd never seen any ninja accidentally hit it with one with their attacks like happened all over town at one point or another – everyone in Konoha knew that where there were ninja property damage would ensue.

This boy, by his count, had recently turned five years old. His earliest memory was of living at the Konoha orphanage, and that was where he had gotten his name – they called him Shimizu Kai.

Kai had found himself to be – for lack of a better word – _smarter_ than the other children; more able to understand what the adults were talking about where children twice his age would be confused as to the conversations.

About two months ago he had heard that recruiters for the shinobi academy would be coming to the orphanage to look for children with 'promise', and Kai had seen the way the old woman's eyes flashed to him at this sentence, and then the way the old man had nodded in response.

That was what had prompted his escape from the place.

If there was one thing Kai didn't want to be, it was a ninja.

Oh sure, kids his age generally held high hopes in being accepted into the shinobi academy and he could see the way they jumped about and squealed in anticipation of maybe being picked; how they had dreams of rescuing princesses, exploring the hidden countries, seeing the ocean and deserts and becoming famous for their exploits.

But he was anything but normal, and he could see the reality of that naïve dream that the other children held. Shinobi were trained to kill. That was what they did, that was the only thing they were trained to be, and that was the only life they would know – most likely a short life, full of paranoia and hardship.

He should know.

_That_ was why he escaped; slipping through the cracks in the system and running away from the possibility of being a shinobi of Konoha – that was not the life he wanted for himself.

Kai sighed and leant back against the rock, sunning himself and sporting a lazy grin.

Although life was hard and he often found it difficult to get food enough to feel _truly_ full, it was a simple way to live and in his mind anything was preferable to becoming a shinobi. He had been able to exploit the system by getting out of sight – there were so many orphans lately that there were not very accurate records and the kids were frequently switched between them as they progressed in education levels and were sent to learn different things – essentially training so that they could get on their feet when they left the 'civilian' academy.

He was able to volunteer to run errands for shopkeepers to get money most times, but other times he had to fall back on thievery and his own cunning, although those talents reminded him of what shinobi were expected to do.

He wrinkled his nose at this thought but quickly banished it – the sun was shining, the birds singing and there was not a soul around – the perfect day, in Kai's experience.

But an arrival would change the course of Kai's short life towards something that he never wanted to be; taking his choice for the future out of his hands and making it unavoidable.

He would find out that day that some things were unavoidable, and Fate was sometimes something that was impossible to circumvent – and a malicious bitch, when it came down to the wire.

His green eyes opened as he felt a shadow pass over him, and he stumbled up and backwards in an attempt to escape the darkly clad figure that stood in front of him, staring blankly like he was carved out of stone.

This impression held in the young boy's mind until the statue's lips moved and the sentence that would dictate his future was uttered. "Shimizu Kai, you have been chosen to be a part of Root, one of the elite shinobi under Danzo-sama."

The voice was a monotone, showing not a hint of human emotion and brooking no argument.

Kai went white. He spun around with the intention of escaping, but he only took a few steps before he felt an impact in the side of his neck and his world went black.

**•◊ΰ◊•**

Kai's eyes fluttered open to a dark room, and he was instantly alert. His mind scrambled for some explanation of why he was in this particular setting – after all, he had been outside the last time he could remember.

He paused as a horrifying thought came to him. Or rather, _memory_.

He groaned and let his head fall back against the hard wooden floor as he realised that yes, he seemed to have been recruited as a shinobi, just not for the Hokage – for someone called 'Danzo'. He hadn't heard of anyone called Danzo, or anything called 'Root' but could guess that it was probably similar to some kind of elite branch, possibly going against the Hokage's wishes as the person that had appeared in front of him had not said anything about being recruited into the Hokage's shinobi force.

Something that he _knew_ was not allowed.

His head started pounding and his fingers trailed up to rub his temples.

Whatever kind of organisation he had been kidnapped by, it seemed he was to be a shinobi – the one occupation that he did _not_ want to be within two feet of.

"You are awake."

Kai nearly jumped out of his skin when a monotonous voice spoke clearly from above him – he hadn't even heard footsteps!

Kai turned his head slowly to see what would probably be able to fuel a normal kid's nightmares for months. He _thought_ it was the guy that had just walked up and knocked him out, proclaiming he would be a ninja, but he wasn't exactly really trusting of his memories right now – he wanted to hope for the chance of having a hallucination or even being caught in some kind of sick genjutsu – he wasn't picky.

The tall black-clad man with the emotionless face and toneless voice stood over him like some kind of psychotic killer (Kai carefully avoided the fact that, as the man was obviously a shinobi, this was probably an accurate assessment) and he had ample amounts of intimidation factor around him, that made Kai flinch back a little in an attempt to put some distance between them.

Kai frowned, "Two questions." He said, in a voice that sounded like he was on the edge of hysteria. He held up to fingers to emphasise his point as he asked, "Where am I, and why the heck am I here?"

The ninja stared at the five year old boy with an intense calculating gaze, and Kai forced himself to not fidget while holding the man's gaze. The minute stretched on and finally the shinobi seemed to tighten his lips as though he likened answering the question with getting his teeth pulled, "You are at the Root training facility. You are here because Danzo-sama allows it."

Kai growled, although it can be said the effect was somewhat humorous to the hardened shinobi (had he been capable of such emotions) rather than portraying even an ounce of fear-inducing intimidation. Kai jumped to his feet and pointed a finger at the tall robot-man whilst drawing in a deep breath. The resulting explosion was far louder and more vehement than the root-member predicted; "WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT _MEAN?!_ I NEVER _ASKED_ TO BE KIDNAPPED OUT OF MY LIFE WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A BY-YOUR-LEAVE AND _YOU_ TELL _ME_ THAT IT IS A PRIVILEGE TO BE HERE?! YOU'VE GOT TO BE _FUCKING_ KIDDING ME! I _DON'T _WANT TO BE A STUPID SHINOBI AND I _NEVER_ WILL BE, UNDERSTAND?! SO YOU MAY AS WELL JUST LET ME OUT SO I CAN GET BACK TO MY LIFE WHILE YOU SHOVE YOUR SHINOBI EDUCATION UP YOUR ARSE!" Kai was shaking with rage and panting lightly when he finished, and his cheeks were slightly flushed and his hands clenched.

Kai felt a deep cold settle into his very bones and he flinched back from the cold glare the trained _professional_ levelled at him. He couldn't help the kind-of-but-not-really wish that the robot-like blandness came back while he took in the very threatening person's expression.

The shinobi scowled at him like this for a few minutes, waiting until the small boy's breathing was under control before he spoke with a measured slowness, carefully setting the words out for maximum comprehension by the obstinate five-year-old. "Listen, _gaki_. You may as well get over yourself right now and learn to do as you're told, or else your life is about to get real bad real quick. For instance, you will not be leaving this room nor will you have contact with anyone other than myself until you can draw on your chakra easily. If you do not accomplish this, there are _much_ easier and more satisfying ways of getting rid of you than releasing you back onto the streets."

Kai gulped in obvious fear as his blood ran cold – it didn't take a genius to hear the glaring threat in the shinobi's words and how they would be 'getting rid of him' if that happened.

Black eyes weighed the terror on the kid's face and became eerily neutral once again.

Kai stumbled backwards as the shinobi obviously reached for his weapon pouch, but he relaxed a little when a scroll was withdrawn.

Kai didn't even think as his hand reacted instinctively by grabbing the speeding scroll out of the air, inches in front of his forehead. He stared at his own hand weirdly for a second – he hadn't thought about that; hell he hadn't even _seen_ the shinobi throw the thing! – but he quickly shook off the reflex action, examining the scroll curiously although reluctant to open it.

If the silent shinobi was surprised by the sudden show of reflexes, Kai missed it. The shinobi drawled patronisingly, "I'm assuming you can _read_…"

The green eyed boy stared flatly at the shinobi, refusing to answer what he deemed a stupid question, not to mention that he was silent and starting to come into the terrifying realisation that basically, if this guy wanted to kill him nobody would care overmuch – he was essentially viewed as 'cannonfodder' by whatever this 'Root' company was and nobody knew him that would send out a search.

The shinobi nodded as if expecting this. "Good. Complete everything on that scroll."

The statement brooked no argument, nor did the ninja hang around long enough to leave room for one.

**•◊ΰ◊•**

Kai was pacing the tiny room with all the agitation of a caged lion. His face was set in a fierce scowl (well, for a five year old) as he glared vehemently at the bane of his short life – something that may very well be the decider of whether he reached the age of six or not.

The tiny room, not containing anything resembling a bed (Kai counted himself lucky that he had found a camouflaged door that led to an equally miniscule bathroom) and was completely bereft of any thing resembling 'comfortable'. He had been forced to try to pick a cosy spot on the floor without a blanket to sleep – he was used to sleeping outside, but he had usually picked grass which at least had some element of softness to it, nor did Fire Country _ever_ get as cold as it did in this damn _cage_ – and was driven to new heights of frustration as he thought over his advances of the past however long he'd been stuck in the hell-hole.

Kai made to punch the wall, but his fist stopped just short of the wood. His fingernails made crescent-shaped marks on the inside of his palm as he forced himself to calm down.

He started pacing again, making his strides as long as he could. He counted the ten paces that would get him from wall-to-wall, and continued to do so, making another circuit of the room.

An outside observer would no doubt wonder just what could drive such a young boy to such heights of frustration.

Kai looked at The Scroll in askance, forcing himself to calm down – after all, anger had gotten him no where so far.

He abruptly dropped down to the ground, grabbing up The Scroll and flipping it open with the now-practised ease that portrayed familiarity that he'd rather not have.

He briefly threw his mind to the task of guessing how much time had passed in his battle to learn what the scroll explained about drawing chakra and he realised that it had been somewhere between seven and ten days, although he was going by the cycles of when the light would suddenly disappear from the room and he'd been forced to go to sleep due to the lack of light to see by.

Sure, The Scroll explained it easily enough. _'Meditate to find your chakra. Focus on the steady, warm feeling inside of you and then force it to go where you want it to go through your body.'_ Kai knew the words by heart, and all he'd found out was that he was pretty sure he didn't find anything remotely resembling a 'warm, fuzzy feeling inside which was steady.'

Kai wondered if he should be insulted that the scroll was obviously directed towards an audience of abysmal intelligence, but decided that he couldn't care less. He was unsure whether his inability to use chakra was something about his secretly persisting dream of avoiding becoming a shinobi or not. Kai rubbed his eyes wearily and slid them shut once again, focusing on _'not thinking, just being. You must attune yourself to the your physical and mental balance and contact your inner energy.'_

Kai snorted. R_ea_lly, it sounded too strange to him.

And not at all what happened when he closed his eyes, as well. He sighed out an explosive breath and felt a brief disorienting sensation as the world turned upside down for a split second before righting itself once again.

His eyes opened, and there was a drastic change to his surroundings. He couldn't find himself shocked at the change so instead he rose to his feet somewhat gracefully and started to pace around and examine his new surroundings once again.

It was illogical and totally impossible, but he had found himself on a large expanse of grass, which was loosely dotted with young trees with trunks that he guessed it would take two or three of himself to wrap around them all the way.

It was tranquil; much better than the windowless room that had become his prison for the last while, and he found it was an escape from reality – even though he didn't understand it.

He didn't see the root protruding from the grass before it was too late and tripped over it. He moved his arms to land properly but was shocked to see the forest shudder and melt away.

His eyes widened and he darted up from the ground, glancing around warily. The blurred surroundings sharpened and his jaw went slack at what he saw…

_It was a bright day and Konoha was looking peaceful. Civilians were looking at the stalls that were carefully guarded by the vendors, and one could hear bird song and the sounds of children laughing in the distance._

_A large figure cut a path through the crowd, a small boy hurrying to keep up with the long strides. It was apparent he was not succeeding in his efforts. The black-haired boy spoke, "Midori-san? Could you… please slow down? I can't keep…"_

_The small voice trailed off as the threatening man suddenly stopped, the young Kai barely managing to avoid running into his round girth. The man loomed threateningly over the now distressed boy and hissed, "You will only speak when spoken to! Don't you remember that __nobody__ wants you? If you don't obey the rules, we'll kick you out – it's not like we couldn't do with the extra space! __You__ have been chosen to learn to cook. Shut up and learn gaki!"_

_The green eyed boy went white and frantically nodded, going into a quick job and silently following the caretaker at the orphanage._

The surroundings shuddered once again and melted away, and Kai was left staring in the direction that he'd just seen a younger version of himself scampering off after the borderline abusive man that had been one of the people acting as overseer for the orphanage that he'd been sent to when he was three for a long few months.

A finger came up to massage his temple softly as he tried to make sense of what had just happened.

Firstly, he actually hadn't remembered that particular incident. That somewhat disturbed him, but he quickly left that feeling alone – he also had the strange feeling that what he had just seen was almost to be expected in this weird place.

He looked down at the ground and gazed suspiciously at the protruding tree root. He crouched down and prodded it, quickly stumbling back in surprise as a small version of what he had just seen played again.

He stood up again and started pacing.

Ok. What did he know? Well, he knew that he got to this forest when he focused on meditating. He also knew that what he had just seen must have been some kind of memory, but one he hadn't been consciously aware of before it played out before him in live action. Maybe…? Yes, that would certainly explain how in the hell he'd gotten into that weird forest…?

Kai rubbed his forehead and glanced around the clearing from a wholly different perspective. He ran through the quickly tossed together checklist.

Can't be real?

Check.

Weird stuff happening?

Check.

Nothing else around?

Check.

…Actually, now that he focused on it, there were none of the usual sounds that one would hear when close to nature, but it didn't make the forest feel oppressing like total silence in an unfamiliar place usually would.

Kai was tempted to bash his head against one of the trunks, but had no idea how much it would hurt hitting what was essentially his own mind.

Yes, you heard it correctly.

Kai scowled. Just how had he managed to get into his own mind? He'd heard vaguely of the Yamanaka mind-techniques, (who hadn't?) but he hadn't thought that there was a way for a ninja to get into their own mind voluntarily and without assistance from the aforementioned clan.

Much less poke around at memories while they were at it.

He crossed his arms and focused on getting the hell _out_.

To his immense relief, he experienced that peculiar sensation once more and felt himself once again sitting cross-legged on the unforgiving wooden floor. He immediately stretched out his arms and legs to stave off the beginnings of stiffness that was settling into his muscles and stood up, stumbling just a little in the process.

He glanced around before remembering that there was nothing in the room to indicate the passing of time – Kai thought it was probably some kind of torture technique, them not even letting him know how much time had passed – but guessed that he had probably been still for a while.

He resumed his pacing, subconsciously counting the ten steps from wall-to-wall as he riddled out exactly what he should do.

He caught a glimpse of The Scroll – the one that was causing all this trouble for him and was quite possibly going to be the cause of his death – and scowled. He almost exactly back where he started before the exercise, the only thing that had changed was the guess that the forest was a representation of his mind that he could somehow get to through meditation.

He spun around a kicked the dull wall viciously before swearing explosively and hopping around on one foot for a few minutes in an attempt to smother the pain.

"_Kuso_!" He mumbled a fair few others before dropping down to the floor, reaching for the infuriating scroll once again.

He looked at the description, scowling fiercely at the last sentence that dealt with tapping into chakra. The one sentence that had been pissing him off for the last week.

'_It usually takes around five hours for a young child to first gain access to their chakra. It should take a further three to four weeks to be able to have the necessary conscious control over it to make use of it in any helpful capacity.'_

His scowl twisted into a worried grimace. It was easy enough to guess that four weeks was his deadline.

And it had already been at least a week, possibly more. And he _still_ had no idea how to even access his chakra!

Which meant that if he didn't make some breakthrough soon, he was in deep shite.

**•◊ΰ◊•**

_Heya my honoured readers, welcome back! I know full well that Kai is way advanced intelligence-wise, but there are very good reasons for this buried in his past and you'll just have to wait until it unfolds! Heh, this is gonna be a lot of fun for me. :)_

_Oh, about the last name 'Shimizu' – well, I chose it cos it's a common last name in Japan (according to the net) and if you wanna know it means 'pure water' although that was coincidental – I just thought that someone would give him a generic name to fit him in with the villagers._

_Skyflyte12_


	3. A Reluctant Shinobi

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Harry Potter

Posted: Thursday, 3 December 2009

A Reluctant Shinobi

Chapter 3

**•◊ΰ◊•**

A five year-old boy paced slowly through a small forest. The trees were spaced a comfortable distance apart which allowed for the pleasant stroll instead of a battle through the undergrowth that generally accompanied the forests of Konoha.

Every now and then the boy would stop and stare at a root that stuck up out of the ground, the hollows in one of the trees or even a branch that hung low over the path.

An observer would see his features twist into a frown more often than not, before he would move on, the imperfection in the landscape miraculously gone.

He walked for what could have been hours or minutes, but he ended up in the middle of a wide clearing. A shoddy house stood in the middle, its creaking wooden walls seeming precarious and fragile even as it stood strongly in the peaceful surroundings.

The boy eased the door open and the inside proved to be vastly different to what the outside portrayed.

It was a dizzying mass of impossible stair cases, (many of which trailed along the ceiling and walls and ending up nowhere) doorways which led to twisted rooms, windows that opened to every different kind of scene or weather possible and music flowing from different places, which many things tucked in odd places.

To anyone who just walked in, it would look like the room from hell – like a dozen teenagers had lived there for weeks; like a localised hurricane had swept through and left everything in disarray and a toddler had been the interior decorator.

…But to the five year old, there was an important method to the complete madness that made everything make perfect sense.

All of the memories he had been able to find had been scooped up and hidden within the array of meaningless memories and fantasies, which worked as an effective 'blanket' for hiding away his life experiences – they weren't exactly a basket of roses, and he knew that he didn't want any ninja with a mind invasion technique to see them and hold the information against him.

There were _quite_ a few interesting things that he'd partially dug up – the memories obviously being from his infancy, which more often than not only contained smells or sounds; sometimes the visual without the others… it was very confusing, but it was enough to raise some questions about just _where_ he had been _before_ ending up in the Konohagakure orphanage.

Anyway, _those_ images were hidden under many layers of his day-to-day life at the orphanage; he'd also designated rooms for hiding his language in – they actually were disguised as a large portrait that, if you looked closely enough, you would be able to read words in kanji and the proper structuring of sentences.

…Any way he looked at it, he was just happy that he'd been able to clear out the forest.

Kai actually couldn't really remember the point at which he had discovered the little house in the middle of his mental forest, nor when he found that he could shift the memories from being easily accessible for invaders to being hidden in a way that would hopefully at least confuse someone reaching for them. A few days after he had concluded that the forest was just his 'mind scape' so-to-speak, he had found himself wandering through it in his millionth attempt at 'finding a balance between his physical and mental energies.'

One thing lead to another and he had been so frustrated with the root-memory that he swore he had tripped over five times that hour that he had wrapped both hands around it and _pulled_.

He had been standing and looking at the uprooted memory in abject horror for approximately ten minutes – how was he supposed to know if he had wrecked his mind or not? Before he started cursing and trying to put it back in.

When it had just seamlessly returned to its place in the forest floor, it got Kai thinking.

It hadn't hurt him to move the memory. It had also gone right where he _willed_ it. He felt that he could work with that.

It had taken hours of experimentation to discover the sheer _extent_ that you could manipulate and hide away memories; it really ended up coming down to his imagination in thinking up new ways to hide the information away.

But that was not really what he was focusing on at this moment.

There was a door that he'd not been able to get into in his 'house' – one that had been there even before he started twisting its dimensions and turning it into an impossibly twisted fun-house of memories lying 'underneath the underneath.'

Internally he lamented the stupid sayings that he was being forced to pick up via the now daily scroll additions that he quickly learnt were on the basics of the shinobi arts.

Stupid invisible ninja.

As he looked around his personal 'madhouse', he wondered if the absolute solitary was getting to him. Really, he guessed that if any Yamanaka walked in here right now, he'd probably be deemed clinically insane.

He shrugged the troubling thought off by comforting himself with the rationalization that all shinobi were probably certifiably insane.

He didn't bother to remember that they were trying to turn _him_ into a shinobi as well and that he still didn't want to be one.

To get back on track, there was a locked door that he just couldn't get into inside his mind.

Kai had discovered unwittingly that when he organised his thoughts – even if the organisation in and of itself was disorganised chaos – the door seemed to move further open the more memories he gathered and sorted.

It had been three days and an estimated shit-load of hours and Kai had finally managed to open the door wide enough to peak inside.

He had immediately shaded his eyes against the glow. It was a huge, pulsating mass of… _something_. Kai guessed that it might be his chakra, and that was why he'd had to organise his mind in order to open the door.

The only problem he'd seen immediately was that it sure didn't feel like The Scroll said – it wasn't 'warm' or 'steady'. At least it felt 'natural'. It had been flowing around as if restless; and he couldn't be sure since he didn't actually have access to it, but it felt more on the 'cool' side.

At the time he had just been happy that he'd seen something that looked like chakra – his _life_ depended on his ability to use it… or more specifically the lack there of.

So that was how Kai ended up filing away his memories and generally cleaning up his mind. He knew that he only had a week until the deadline was up – _one week_ with which to access his chakra _and_ learn to manipulate it with some reliability.

According to The Scroll – for that chakra manipulation scroll would _forever_ be referred to with capitals by him – it was impossible to get a decent grasp on chakra in less than three weeks. Well the damn thing had _also_ said it would only take a _few hours_ to tap into it. Kai's only hope was that he would somehow be able to manage it in only a week.

Kai could only hope that possible future death would be good motivation – that was really the only reason he was even doing this stupid stuff – sure, he didn't want to be a shinobi, but Kai was _nothing_ if not a survivor.

He looked around his madhouse, pleased to see that it seemed more… complete than when he had started. He turned to The Door and mentally crossed his fingers before approaching it.

_Please_, Kai thought to himself, _please let this work, or I'm dead._

He reached for the door and put his hand on the solid wood. He stood still for a second before gathering his nerve and _pushing_.

The door slid open easily.

Kai stood gaping at the huge roiling mass of chakra.

All was still for a moment.

And then the glowing white ball surged against some barrier that looked like plastic – it had obviously been keeping it together and in one place. The thin barrier _stretched_ and Kai was able to notice that it glowed a different colour to the blazing ball of energy before the barrier _snapped_ apart and the glowing energy rushed out of its former shape and outwards; soaking into the walls and ceiling and he could feel it spreading through his mindscape.

It was when it had saturated his mind that he felt the burning begin.

It was moving _slowly_ and it was simply _excruciating_.

Kai screamed as he was ripped into reality and as the pain multiplied as it crawled down his arms, moving throughout his whole body.

The last thing he saw was The Scroll unfurled and disregarded on the ground beside him before he blacked out from the pain.

**•◊ΰ◊•**

Kai woke up with a pained groan on his lips and a massive headache.

He clutched his head and screwed his eyes shut, unwilling to test his body at the moment – after all, he had nothing to track the time, and he now had no idea how long he had been out _or_ how long left till the dead line passed.

That was bad. Extremely bad. Actually, Bad with a capital B-A-D!

He decided that if he was to be 'disposed of' soon, he may as well see what was left of his body.

He reluctantly opened his eyes and glanced at his arms, half-expecting them to be bloody sticks – even _if_ he had just used them to hold his head – after all, after that pain it was almost inconceivable that nothing had changed visibly.

He was contradicted, however, by the smooth skin of his arms that was displayed plainly. He couldn't be sure, but he thought that a few scars he'd had had actually vanished.

It was quite a shock.

He furrowed his brow and pulled up the legs of his loose pants to check them as well – it turned out to be the same.

He blinked, absolutely dumbfounded.

And then he got to thinking about just what that pain could have been.

He carefully pulled himself to his feet, wary of how stiff his muscles were – most likely a result of his being knocked out. He got to his feet with surprising ease and started doing the stretches that he had memorised from one of the scrolls that had come after the first, but focused his mind inwards.

The obvious question was just what the hell that white energy had done to his body that caused such pain. He was fairly sure it was his chakra, but there was the question of why most of it had been trapped within that barrier in the first place. As he had no idea where to find an answer to that, Kai decided to skip that question and move onto the most pressing.

He finished the exercises and chose to remain standing, focusing inwards. He was surprised to immediately feel a cool presence under his skin – he could sense it slowly moving around his body; calming and soothing and rippling. He likened it to water; always moving and flowing.

A small smile touched his lips.

Really, he had never felt anything like it.

He almost reluctantly opened his eyes and was happy to find he could still feel the reassuring presence in the back of his mind; how it flowed calmly through his body.

He breathed out a sigh in relief – it seemed like he had stumbled upon his chakra, no matter if it felt different to what The Scroll said it should.

Thinking of scrolls… Kai glanced at the spot where scrolls usually turned up and was shocked and worried to see two scrolls resting in the corner.

Did that mean he'd been unconscious for two days?

Now that he thought about it, he was absolutely _starving_ and _thirsty_. He cast his eyes around the room and found, to his relief, a fairly large 'meal' (that was cold) and a jug a water. He sighed. Didn't anyone know how to cook around here? Kai snorted when a picture of that robot-shinobi wearing a frilly pink apron and watching an egg boil came to mind.

Yeah, right. Cooking shinobi – or at least Cooking Root Shinobi sounded as ridiculous as it would probably be.

He shook his head to focus back on task – he had two scrolls to memorise and about three days to be able to use his chakra to 'reinforce his muscles' in order to go faster and put more power into punches.

Kami was he in trouble.

**•◊ΰ◊•**

_Yo guys :)_

_Well, I hope you enjoyed the newest instalment, any feedback is appreciated_

_Skyflyte12_


	4. Root Academy

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Harry Potter

Posted: Friday, 11 December 2009

Root Academy Division

Chapter 4

**•◊ΰ◊•**

If anyone were to stumble upon the small room that was locked from the outside, unmonitored and containing a five year-old boy at this moment, they would no doubt be confused as to why said child was not panicking.

The aforementioned child was spreadeagled on his back and it was glaringly obvious that he was exhausted – his limbs were shaking from exertion and his breath came in short gasps as his chest heaved in an effort to take in more air.

But there was a triumphant grin on the child's face.

This child's name was Shimizu Kai.

Almost luminous green eyes slid open, gazing unseeingly up at the ceiling.

Really, it felt like he had just lifted the weight of the world off his chest – he'd finally managed to do what The Scroll said about chakra manipulation which quite literally meant he had avoided the noose that had been tightening since all those weeks ago when he had been kidnapped by shinobi.

He clenched his fist, easily ignoring the small throbbing in his hands.

He had worked obsessively ever since he had suffered his own personal 'burning' – that was the only description he could give to the overwhelming pain that he had forcibly experienced from the release of his chakra – and could now use it with some reliability.

Actually, Kai suspected that the pain he had felt was his blocked-up chakra burning and stretching his coils or 'chakra system' to allow for the sudden increase. When he read one of the scrolls that had been left at the door explaining the delicacy and fragility of the Chakra System had had blanched – basically, there had been a very real possibility that the influx would kill him as even the smallest altering of coils could be potentially debilitating or deadly.

It was an _extremely_ unpleasant discovery, to say the least.

But this had been mostly discarded because he _had_ survived it and the clock was ticking.

He quickly got the hang of fluctuating, condensing and regulating the 'flow' of his chakra to the different areas of his body – he found this part easy as his chakra was naturally fluid and once he found out _how_ it was simple to direct it. The Scroll had said that chakra was 'steady' and when starting out very hard to make it thin out or thicken in areas of the body – apparently it liked to keep everything constant and disliked the instability of being stretched, condensed and redirected consciously. Kai ignored The Scroll – he figured that since it hadn't told him anything about going into his mindscape or organising his mind in order to access his chakra, this part was just added in to confuse him.

The next part was _much_ harder.

The Scroll detailed an exercise for chakra control that it referred to as the 'leaf exercise.' To perform this, the goal was to make a leaf stick to your head by applying a steady amount of chakra to your forehead – reason being that apparently it was easiest to focus chakra there.

Unfortunately there were no leaves in the room, but this was easily solved by ripping off a bit of paper from one of the blank notebooks that had been left in the room to take notes or 'practise writing' on because apparently he had to learn how – he easily avoided the scrolls dedicated to the correct formation of kanji and the other alphabets. After all, he had no need for that.

Taking the paper in one hand, he half-closed his eyes and focused on pulling a small ribbon of chakra to his forehead.

When he felt the cool sensation, he placed the paper over it.

It didn't stick for a second.

It had just fluttered to the floor.

_That_ was the point at which his high from his recent success went down the drain and reality kicked in once more – _this_ was the last thing he had to be able to do with his chakra, and he only had a day or two.

And so began the intense training.

Really, the only reason he stopped to take care of his basic needs were that they distracted him from the task at hand – that and he needed to eat to refill his chakra.

So here he was – hours of continuous practise had _finally_ turned up results.

He had found that you had to get the point of sticking as small as possible – it was about the size of the tip of his smallest finger. The hard bit was keeping up a continuous, _steady_ output because of the sinuous and slippery nature of his chakra.

But he had managed it.

The trick of it got easier and he was now able to do it with the barest of thoughts – just like The Scroll had described.

By his (admittedly bad) estimate of the time that had passed, Kai thought that the shinobi would turn up in about a day.

His head lolled lazily to the side and caught sight of the stack of scrolls that had gathered in one corner of the room.

One other good thing about organising his mind was that he found it ridiculously easy to remember things – it didn't have to be writing; it could be a conversation, the certain smell of something… all he had to do was focus on pulling it up and out of 'storage' and he could see and remember what he needed to do with that particular memory – it was a good day when he discovered that he didn't necessarily have to go into his forest to manipulate his mind.

But back to his success – now that he was (hopefully) not in danger of being 'disposed of' his mind had started to conjure pictures of what 'shinobi training' may entail. Those thoughts put him on edge, so he painfully pushed himself up and looked around the room for anything that might take his mind off what might happen after he was let out of the room.

Kai started pacing, by now completely bored. He caught sight of the small piece of paper he had ripped off for the 'leaf exercise' (even if they provided no bloody leaves) and bent down to pick it up.

He looked at it thoughtfully, and then grinned.

He just might have found something to pass the time _and_ to advance his control of chakra.

**•◊ΰ◊•**

Since he had no idea of how much time had passed since the beginning of his imprisonment, nor whether he was being watched (although he guessed he wasn't, apart from the second it took for someone to slip in and drop off a meal) he had no idea when someone was supposed to come in and get him out of the cage – he never allowed himself the horrifying notion that he would be confined to such a small space for however long his training took – after all, ninja needed endurance, and he hadn't been given any weapons to practise that with, so it was logical that they would take him somewhere else to train him.

Or at least that was what he kept telling himself.

He had received four scrolls since he had finally been able to do the 'leaf exercise' and none of them were on chakra manipulation – they were all on the 'Shinobi Guidelines' – that was stuff about how shinobi had no feelings and were tools designed to do their jobs – they were Brain Washing tools if he had ever seen them. He read them before promptly locking them away somewhere in the dark door titled 'Shinobi Stuff' in his mind. Well, he didn't actually make the sign, but that's what _he_ called it.

The only thing that stopped him from mentally snapping from the monotonous, claustrophobic surroundings and lack of human company was constantly working – he did the stretches and exercises detailed on the scrolls, he tested his chakra and took up his mind with an adjusted version of the 'leaf exercise' – he just added another piece of paper to a different part of the body once maintaining the previous amount got too easy.

That chakra exercise was really the best thing – chakra manipulation was _really _hard, not to mention that he didn't have all that much of it when it came down to it, which meant that it required single-minded focus and _continued_ to require an enormous amount of concentration because each time he managed all the leaves simultaneously he just added another.

He was up to six leaves; one on his forehead, two on the back of his hands, one on his stomach and another two stuck to the bottom of his feet. His feet were the absolute _hardest_ place to channel the chakra, and he was happy that it took so much time to raise his ability to manipulate chakra at that many points.

It was an exercise in frustration, but at least it kept him occupied.

Kai couldn't believe that he had misjudged the time so badly, but it was still the morning – maybe today was the day?

**•◊ΰ◊•**

"Show me what you have learnt."

After so much time, Kai had almost been happy to see the guy – even if it was the robot-man shinobi that had put him in this situation in the first place – and had turned around to see the blank-faced ninja standing behind him, gazing at him steadily. The man didn't say hello; no, just asking about what he was supposedly kidnapped for.

The man had shoved a piece of paper in his hands and forced Kai to write down answers to questions – which Kai grudgingly did, but purposefully only answered enough correctly so that he would pass – the ninja said he had to get half of it right.

The test paper had been ripped from his hands the moment he had finished the last question and now Kai stared in his best impression of 'stupidly' up at the man-drone shinobi, blinking innocently as he did so and pretending to be uncomprehending of what the guy had said. He just stayed on the floor – no need to make it easy for the emotionless bastard, after all.

The shinobi presented a solid expressionless front but allowed his eyes to glitter sadistically.

That got Kai up quick.

The shinobi then told Kai to perform the various exercises, designating the amount that he would have to complete. It left Kai gasping for air, although some of it was put on – he guessed that the shinobi was mostly testing to see what 'potential' he would have, and he wanted to be the worst because they may yet decide that it wasn't worth teaching him – hell, he was able to have a dream even if he acknowledged the impossibility of it.

When they were finished, the shinobi told Kai to jump and touch the ceiling, using chakra to allow it happen.

Kai hadn't actually tried jumping up to the ceiling and was more than a bit nervous. He bent his legs and crossed his fingers where the shinobi couldn't see before condensing a bit of the chakra in his legs.

He _jumped_ and was pleasantly surprised to find himself go _much_ further than he had been able to without the use of chakra.

It wasn't difficult to tap the ceiling and land, and he found he instinctively used a bit of chakra at the bottom of his feet to cushion the landing.

Inside, he breathed a sigh of relief.

The ninja produced a leaf from somewhere and handed it to Kai. "Now, stick that leaf to your forehead."

Kai plucked the leaf from the shinobi's fingers and carefully placed it on his forehead, checking that the output was the same for an actual leaf before releasing it.

He grinned at the stone-faced shinobi and said, "Eh, piece of cake, stone-san."

Kai could have sworn he saw the man twitch, but had to admit that it could have been a trick of the light.

The shinobi did not give any inkling of his emotions as he said simply, "Come."

Kai was relieved to finally escape his prison and happily followed the ghost-man's silent steps out of the small room and down the hallway.

He didn't bother to hide his curiosity as his head swung from side-to-side, searching for signs of other people as they walked. He noticed that they seemed to be underground, judging by the lack of windows. Kai also noticed that the corridors seemed to lead in weird directions, and he was getting twisted around, already unsure of the direction from which he came.

The robot-man was now leading him down a long hall – Kai thought it could be a tunnel – and he had to jog slightly to keep up. Kai noticed that the tunnel was sloping upwards.

They turned a sharp corner and Kai was relieved to see a door.

The shinobi opened it by putting his hand on a certain spot before he pushed it open.

Kai got his first glimpse of sunlight in about a month, and it lifted his spirits slightly – maybe it wouldn't be as bad as he thought it was going to be.

But he wouldn't hold his breath.

They had emerged in a kind of courtyard – there were a few benches to rest on and Kai could see a large grassy field – he would guess that that was where they went to train. He was cheered slightly to see a few kids practising throwing kunai – at least he wouldn't be alone wherever he was.

The shinobi bypassed the training area and led him into the large building that stood in the middle of the cleared out area. Actually, now that he was looking, it looked like this place was in one of Konoha's infamous forests – he could see the massive trees looming just past where the fences were, and the forest was dense and dark.

The stiff shinobi glanced sharply around and signalled over an older boy – Kai guessed that he was about three years older than him and the boy had red hair and brown eyes. The drone-man that had been leading Kai around made a few weird hand gestures – none like the hand signs used for jutsu that had been in one of those scrolls – but the boy nodded seriously and the robot-man disappeared.

Kai shifted uncertainly under the gaze of the taller boy, extremely aware that he was accustomed to being in that terrible cage and seeing that particular shinobi, so now he found learning a new place and rules unnerving. He inwardly scowled – that was probably the reason that they isolated their recruits – they can strip any independence away from them and make them dependant on the people who kidnapped them.

He stopped fidgeting, using those handy mind techniques to pull a veil over his unwanted feelings and relaxed.

The boy's eyes seemed to glint in interest and he introduced himself, "Ohayo, Kai-san. My name is Taiki and I've been assigned to show you around."

Kai was relieved that the boy was nice – he'd been half expecting someone who wouldn't tell him anything. "Ohayo, Taiki-sempai."

The older boy didn't smile, but Kai got the feeling that he was smiling on the inside. It seemed that Taiki had been conditioned to keep his face blank, just like that other shinobi.

Taiki gestured for Kai to follow him, and Kai was close behind as the older boy slid open the door to the complex and motioned for him to go inside.

Kai repressed a shiver – it was pretty cold inside the building compared to the burning day outside. Kai was startled out of his examining of the hall when Taiki asked a question that sounded more like a statement, "I guess no one told you anything about what's happening, huh."

Kai nodded and added flatly, "I don't want to be here."

Taiki grabbed his wrist, forcing Kai to look in his eyes. His smooth voice was in a harsh whisper that contrasted greatly from the edging on congenial tone before, "_Gaki_, don't say anything like that here. I'll warn you now – there is _no_ way out. There is no hope of getting out and even if you did, they'd hunt you down, torture you and put you back in the program."

Kai flinched back from the fierce scowl that Taiki directed at him, even as his eyes widened in shock.

Taiki was still lowly hissing out a whisper as he said, "This is the _warning_, kid. You'd do well to heed it. Hell, if you had said that to the wrong person, they would have you _strung up_ from that post in the courtyard as a 'deterrent'." Taiki's hard gaze was levelled at Kai, and he could only nod wordlessly in reply.

A second later, Taiki was a reasonable distance away and continued as if the hissed conversation had never happened. "Well, let me be the first to say 'Welcome to the Root Academy Division.' It's called the RAD for convenience. You could be here for six weeks or four years, considering what type of shinobi they train you to be and how much of a prodigy you are. Remember this though; if you ever get above your station, there are a lot of sadistic bastards here that would delight in knocking you down in the most _painful_ ways imaginable."

Kai grimaced – just the way that Taiki said _'most painful ways imaginable'_ was enough to give him a good idea of what might happen – or at least to know that he _didn't_ want to know.

Taiki continued as if he hadn't seen the expression, "You'll find out that the currency here is information and your competency in the Shinobi Arts."

Taiki suddenly started moving, leading Kai further into the complex. He started indicating doors as they passed them, starting up an explanation, "That there is the food hall; make sure that you're there on time or you won't eat. That door on the right is the library – there are books there on a lot of helpful subjects, you just have to look for yourself. Across the hall from the library is the indoor training centre – some of the instructors prefer to work inside on certain things."

Taiki walked past those and opened the door at the end of the hall and led Kai into what looked like some kind of communal area – there were a lot of seats scattered around and there was even more shelves of books around the room and it felt almost comfortable. Taiki explained, "Here's the commons; it's good for sitting around and reading when it's too dark to do so outside. Do you see the doors over there in the corner of the room? Well, that's where you sleep. You've got the left door, the girls have the right."

Taiki then turned around and waved Kai back out of the room. The trip back was at a slower pace and Taiki spoke up again. "This complex is separated into three sections. This is the first – Level One – and the students that are on this level have been affectionately dubbed the 'Daisies'. The way that you advance is through a list of rankings – you'll see it pinned up in the food hall. The top three at the end of the week can choose to take a competency test and fight the three lowest ranked in the next level up. How they do on both coupled with the sensei's recommendations determines if they're elevated to the next level."

Kai nodded. That was good information. "Ano, is there anything else I should know?"

Taiki scratched his cheek, "Hai. Your name won't be used while you're still in RAD. They'll call you by numbers – I think you are going to be Shichi (seven). So, you might wanna keep that in mind. Oh, you'll also want to get a head start on languages – all the sensei speak different languages on a monthly basis because it's 'advantageous for shinobi to communicate in ways that the enemy will not understand and it helps with de-coding and coding secret documents' but everyone knows they're just sadists and enjoy fucking with us."

Kai was wide-eyed and said weakly, "Different… languages?"

Taiki's lips twitched upwards and he patted Kai on the back, "Hai. The Bastards. Well, I've got stuff to do. Oh, if you see me again, you better call me Juu (ten) – the sensei use numbers to try to wipe out our humanity but there ain't no way it would work on us, ne?" Taiki grinned slightly before adding, almost as an afterthought, "Oh, ya might wanna get a head start on sign language." And then he disappeared, leaving a shell-shocked Kai alone and confused.

Kai slowly turned around to head into the building, knowing that he couldn't disregard the tip about languages, even if he knew he wouldn't get anywhere fast with it any time soon.

From what Taiki had said – that bit about humanity – Kai half-grinned. He might just have an ally in the RAD, and it was good to know that there was at least one person there who would warn him when he was going to do something outside the rules.

…Or at least he _hoped_ that was what 'Juu' had meant.

After all, the robot-shinobi had ordered Juu to show him around, so this might be some kind of trick on their part – how was he supposed to know?

In that moment, Kai resolved not to say any of the things he wouldn't want known by those shinobi – how was he supposed to know if someone was watching him or not? He knew shinobi were masters of stealth and concealment, so it was quite possible.

He slid open the door to the library and his eyes widened at the sheer amount of books and scrolls that it contained.

Kai sighed.

It seemed his first day at RAD was going to be worse than he thought.

**•◊ΰ◊•**

Hours later and some kind of loud bell rang out across the compound.

Kai rubbed his eyes wearily – he had practically dug himself into a corner of the library, commandeering a TV to play a lot of video tapes that showed sign language and started on the basics of it. What he really needed was to practise the handsigns – it was simply impossible to do it without hours of practise, but fortunately he thought the he'd be able to identify instructions and such – he decided to thank kami for the day that he had stumbled upon his mindscape and in turn improved his ability to take in information dramatically.

He quickly packed away the scrolls and put everything back as he found it before trailing out of the library and making his way to the mess hall.

He thought nothing of entering, but when he looked up and saw twelve faces glaring at him he started to feel decidedly uncomfortable.

He was able to ignore their gazes and make his way to where a woman was handing out food, carefully keeping one eye on the other students. He was able to notice that there were more in the region of eight to twelve years, but there were a few who were around his age.

He managed to collect his food, although when he turned around he noticed that the others were obviously not allowing him near their tables, even though there were a few seats. He slowly started towards a table that only contained one chair and was practically placed in the exact middle of the room – an extremely vulnerable position, he knew.

He slunk into his seat and wondered idly if this was the welcome afforded every new student as he dug into his meal and muttered a soft "Itadakimasu" more through habit than courtesy.

It seemed that was the signal for the other students to start their meal, but no one was talking, although he could see a few hand movements that were probably part of sign language. Kai grimaced as he realised that he didn't recognise them – yet another effective tactic to upset and gain advantage over your opponent.

He blocked it all out – after all, there was no way that he could understand it anyway, and ate in silence.

It was just about the longest meal of his short life.

He got up and deposited his plate, then started walking out of the hall.

It was not to be a graceful exit, however, as he apparently misjudged the door frame and crashed into it, falling to the ground. In the corner of his eye, he saw a black-haired boy holding his hands on the ram sign and smirking openly at him.

_Genjutsu._

Kai didn't allow any of the anger on his face, he merely nodded at the boy and carefully stepped out of the room.

He made the decision to find out how to identify and stop genjutsu then and there – there was no way he'd be a sitting duck.

The laughter from the hall rang behind him and hardened his determination.

_Even if_ he had to learn to be a damn shinobi, he wouldn't allow them the satisfaction.

He wouldn't lose, nor would he give up.

They would get theirs.

Kai wearily trudged back to the library, this time to find out about genjutsu.

**•◊ΰ◊•**

_Well well, the start of Kai's training._

_I'll say now that Kai's reluctance to be a shinobi has nothing to do with being part of __Danzo's__ Root – he wouldn't want to be one for the Hokage either; it's something that he has had a… bad experience with, but you'll find that out later._

_Will we see Juu again? How will Kai do in training? What kind of training does he have to go through? All questions that will be answered in either the next chapter or in the consequent ones._

_I hope you enjoyed this._

_Skyflyte12_


	5. The Daisy Division

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Harry Potter

Posted: Tuesday, 15 December 2009

* * *

The Daisy Division

Chapter 5

**•◊ΰ◊•**

"Heh, he's only a snot-nosed little brat, there ain't no way he'll even last a month!"

"Wasn't that what you said about San? Heh, that kid was in the next level in two!"

"Shut up! How was I supposed to know about the freaky jutsu thing?"

"Um… maybe because he had _arms_ growing out of his _stomach_?!"

"…Shut up."

"Ha! _I've_ heard that guy's in the RAU now."

"Wow, really? Huh, never imagined…"

"Yes yes, we all know how you've _never_ imagined, Hachi."

"Quiet, you."

"No. Oh, watch out, there's the new kid."

"Oh, come on. It's not as if he can understand shit. He's only been here two weeks. It took _me_ like, a month to start to understand what the hell everyone was saying, and I had Hyaku as my sensei. That bitch is insane. She spilt my blood every time I spoke Japanese at the start. There ain't no better motivation than that, trust me."

"Sounds tough. But he _does_ look a bit smarter than usual. Who knows? You do know that he countered _Juuichi's_ genjutsu the other day, right?"

"WHAT!? There ain't no way _that_ scrawny little kid could do that. No way no how."

"Yeah, that's what _I_ thought, too. But I saw it myself. It slid off him like water – never even got a foothold."

"… I gotta admit, that's impressive. Ish. In a couple a' months he _might_ be able to get to the next level."

"Hey guys! Um, is there a reason you're just talking in front of the new kid?"

"Psh. Why do I have to keep reminding you people that there ain't no way the gaki can understand sign language? Hell, we only started it a month ago."

"Hachi, you keep forgetting that you ain't the best here."

"Meh. Anyway, guys, I've just found out who took the new kid for taijutsu."

"Hey! Don't pull the conversation away from his insult! That's just not fair!"

"Hachi, do us all a favour and shut up. Even if we can't hear your annoying voice, the words are grating. So Go, who's unfortunate enough to get the gaki?"

"Heh. I think you mean who the gaki was unfortunate enough to get."

"…You don't say."

"Rrr. Come _on_, Go. Just spit… _sign_ it out already!"

"Fine. The gaki's got Ishikawa."

…

"…ow."

"What should we put on his grave?"

"Psh. What grave? No one would bother even _trying_ to find the remains, 'cos they'd be so small."

"When did you get so… witty Hachi?"

"Hmm. I dunno. There's just something about finding someone's remains… ya know, I dunno. I think Hyaku (damn that bitch to hell) is rubbing off on me."

"…I didn't… that was… never mind."

"Well, you _have _been here for almost four months. Don't cha think it's time to move on up? Like, you're at the top of the Rankings, and I know ya love blood and stuff, so why don't ya?"

"Hmph. The grand bitch won't back me for promotion till' I finish this month. Some shit about wanting to make sure I don't die."

"Um… are we talking about the same raving blood maniac?"

"Oh, I don't know. I _suppose_ there was the extra creepy part where she included 'because you're blood looks so good' but if ya get around that, it's just about the same meanin'. And I don't like thinking about it much, ter tell ya the truth."

"Phew, just as long as we've got that cleared up."

"Um, Hachi, Roku? Ain't it time for your genjutsu lesson with Aoki?"

"FUCK!"

"…Well, bye. Don't mind me… I'm fine here… all alone..."

Kai watched Go, resident 'funny guy' trail dejectedly out of the training grounds after Roku and Hachi – two that he had learnt to watch out for. He had managed to monitor their conversation without arising suspicion – it was sometimes useful being the new kid as everyone expected him to not know what they were saying. He'd managed to find out quite a few things about the Root facility through conversation between the others that they would have guarded carefully in other circumstances.

Kai looked back to the targets and focused; if he didn't manage to get a bullseye in his next lesson with Aoki she said she was going to 'poke enough into him that he could pass for a pincushion' – not like he hadn't _already_ been skewered, but he thought that no one should want to try to figure out how her mind worked.

He just counted it fortunate that there was a full medic-nin station that you could go to after practise – sure, it hurt, but they healed you up without a scratch.

He didn't know if he'd have preferred to have physical evidence of his agony or not, but he wasn't given a choice. …Well, he could _not_ go and bleed to death, but that wasn't really a viable option.

He threw the kunai and it landed with a _thunk_ in the target, a few centimetres away from the centre.

Well, at least he was managing to _hit it_.

Considering that he hadn't even _held_ a kunai until two weeks ago, it was probably some kind of miracle.

But then, if every ninja was trained like this, he would think it safe to assume that it wouldn't be healthy to miss.

In the fourteen days he had been in the 'Daisy Division' he had been stabbed, trod on, knocked unconscious, broken a (record) total of seven bones, fallen from a great height, been _pushed_ off a great height, practised the basics of kunai throwing until his fingers bled, been under twenty-four and a half separate genjutsu, poisoned, scorned, taunted, beaten up… just about every thing under the sun.

And most of that was just from his fellow students.

What the others had said about his sensei being insane (more than the norm for this place) was excruciatingly correct.

The reason he got Ishikawa as his sensei was because he apparently favoured the 'water' element and she was the taijutsu instructor that went with it – all the students were taught specific styles that complemented their preferred elements and it just so happened that he had drawn the short straw in that Ishikawa had been disabled and had decided to teach him the basic katas for the style. The style didn't really have a name, but it focused on flowing around and with combat and moving faster than your enemy – a style that fit Kai perfectly, as he was so small.

… The _bad_ thing about learning this was the way in which it was done – Ishikawa-sensei had taken him to a swiftly flowing out-of-the-way stream and pushed him in. He had gotten his feet quickly, spluttering and she had grinned ruthlessly at him, "Now here's how it's done…"

Apparently, you had to do the moves slowly and against the flow of the water – that added resistance and built muscles, not to mention that you had to focus on the _flow_ of the water. She would demonstrate some move and Kai would stand in the cold water and attempt to copy it.

Needless to say, it was painful and he had gotten extremely sick after a few hours stuck in the water and doing repetitive work – everything was aching and he had been in danger of dropping to sleep when his sensei had pulled him out by the scruff of his shirt and dropped him off at the med-station.

There was now a bed with his name on it there, actually.

Well, he was (fortunately) developing his taijutsu through hours of intense practise, both with and without supervision.

And then, on top of the taijutsu and basic weapons lessons, was the language aspect.

All of his sensei used sign language to communicate; everyone he came into contact with used it… there was no one speaking the language he had used since he could remember.

And the worst thing was that no one expected him to understand most of it.

Well, it was a blessing and a curse.

The good thing was that he could 'listen' in on conversations.

The bad thing was that it got annoying watching people insult you to your face. Also that everyone addressing him used extremely short words – they would say things like "You… here… come." And that would be it.

It was quite insulting.

There was also the problem that while he could understand it, he had difficulties forming the correct hand signs to respond back – after all, even though he could remember it all, his limited muscle memory made him stumble over the gestures.

He had to admit that there was still a lot he didn't know, but he could deal with most of the everyday conversations; a few gestures and signs still confused him, and he always forgot the sign for the letter 'T', but apart from that, he was good.

He grimaced and walked over to the miniscule target, pulling out the kunai.

Something – he didn't know what – sent off warning bells in his head and he instinctively stepped to the side.

He managed not to flinch as a kunai slammed dead-centre into the target that had been in front of him. He had no anger for whoever had thrown the weapon – it had happened countless times in his stay here.

At least he had managed to dodge this one.

He really wondered when the insanity of constant attacks had become the 'norm' to him.

Kai reached out and easily pulled the weapon from the target, then turned around to see one of the other students. He pulled up a memory of a name – this was Kyuu. Kyuu was the youngest in the 'Daisy Division' at the moment; he was also the most freaky and abnormal of them. This was a kid that had been honed to be a weapon since _before _he knew what a 'weapon' was.

Kyuu started 'talking', "I know you know what we're saying."

Kai couldn't actually care enough to be surprised. After all, he wasn't consciously trying to give that impression – but right now it seemed like a good idea for the future. After all, maybe he could just stay in the 'Daisy Division' for as long as it took him to be good enough to escape?

"Well, it's not like I care." Kai signed back, only stumbling a little.

"I know. You're weird, but at least you can dodge now. It was starting to get pathetic, how you would be hit by the most obvious attack."

It was obvious that the kid wasn't actually insulting him – after all, Kai didn't actually think that Kyuu had the capacity to be condescending. It was just a comment, and even if he _was_ aiming to be insulting, Kai found he didn't really care. "Well, I guess I just got tired of being hit."

Kyuu stood for a moment, and Kai examined him more closely. The boy had straight black hair and eyes; quite common-looking for someone who exuded absolutely no emotion. Kai had heard that he had some kind of freaky ninja ability (most of those in the RAD did) that allowed him to practically be anyone, anywhere – if he touched them, he'd be able to copy them exactly – right down to mannerisms and expressions. He was being trained for the RID – 'Root Intelligence Division', more specifically the infiltration branch.

Kyuu was in the first Level only because he had to be taught basic defence – it was likely that whoever ran Root would pull him out of the RAD and throw him into the field as soon as he hit a certain age.

"You're doing it wrong."

Kai stared at him weirdly. "…Aren't you guys supposed to be 'hazing' me right now? You know, it's horrible, it's gonna hurt, blah de blah blah?"

Kyuu just stepped forward, the kunai curiously appearing in his hand before Kai realised that it had been taken. "Shichi, you can dodge. That mean's you've got a place."

It was the first time anyone had referred to him by his 'name' – Shichi – and Kai recognised the gesture for what it was. He was getting a chance to get into the loop and out of the dangerous role of 'Target'.

He silently watched as Kyuu positioned himself before quickly releasing the kunai, allowing it to shoot towards the target. It hit dead centre once again.

Kai didn't like the fact that he would have to fit in with the other kids – they all had, by some form or another, consented to be here, or at least accepted what was happening to them. But he hadn't enjoyed his daily and sometimes hourly visits to the medic-nin so he swallowed his real thoughts and copied the boy next to him.

It was all to get good enough to get out.

He settled into the stance and eyed the target, twisting his wrist as he threw the weapon towards it.

It hit dead centre.

**•◊ΰ◊•**

"Faster."

He moved against the current, straining to keep his limbs in the correct position while moving faster against the cold water.

"Faster."

It had become like a chant in the back of his mind; he moved almost seamlessly between the taijutsu sequences that had been pounded into his body, at most times quite literally.

"Faster"

Half the time he has unsure if it was himself or his taijustu instructor goading him to go just that little bit faster; to push his body just that little bit more.

"Faster."

To raise the bar, to raise his endurance, to step towards getting out, away. A step towards living in some village and running a normal business, far away from the shinobi arts.

"Stop."

The words cut through his haze of mental and physical exhaustion and the red-haired woman looked down her nose at him in distaste before grabbing the back of his shirt and heaving him out of the ice-cold stream.

"Stupid gaki." She said, her voice carefully crafted to sound like she was talking to a very small child.

Kai regained control of his shaking limbs and managed to stand fairly steadily in front of his teacher.

A split second and she was in front of him, a punch aimed at his jaw.

He instinctively moved around the punch, just enough that it ruffled his messy hair as it passed.

He caught the arm and pulled it towards himself in an attempt to throw off his teacher's balance.

He only noticed the leg poised to kick his knee when it was too late.

He landed heavily on the ground with a pounding pain in his left knee.

But still, he got up again; after all, there was nothing else to do.

It was a one-sided massacre of a spar; his sensei having all of the advantages that mattered; skill, height, experience, knowledge… there was never any chance of any other conclusion.

As Shichi kept getting up to meet the barbaric sensei in their parody of a 'spar' he kept his thoughts away from the burning in his already exhausted muscles; the stabbing pains where kunai were lodged that he hadn't gotten a chance to remove, the places that his sensei had landed powerful kicks and punches.

The first thing you learned in the 'Daisy Division' was that you would not learn without pain. The pain would only recede once you started to learn and get a handle on it – and then the pain would become more vicious, as the sensei deemed you less 'breakable'. They were called 'Daisies' for a reason – they were the lowest of the low; the most inexperienced, the youngest, the most vulnerable. Shichi had heard some of the Level Two 'Snapdragons' laughing at him as he got the shit beaten out of him by several of his classmates sometime around his third week at RAD. He didn't understand what they were saying – they were using a different language – but he could get the general idea through their body language.

That was another thing he had been forced to learn at Level One – if you couldn't understand a thing people were saying, you had to be able to interpret them another way. The things that you learnt to read were body language, facial expressions, tone of voice… and most often than not those you would be reading were reading you as well.

The sensei had switched languages a month into his entrance to the RAD. They were now learning English and it was much harder than the sign language largely because, on top of everything, they had added writing and reading classes to the student's schedules. Shichi and the others were struggling through it, although he did notice that the younger students had it easier – himself included.

The mind-numbing difficulty of learning the language sometimes got to the students, and a few had resulted to sign language, assuming that since the sensei wouldn't hear them, they would be fine.

What they hadn't counted on was the sensei anticipating this and assigning one of the 'Snapdragons' to monitor them. Apparently, those in Level Two were taught entirely different things, although Shichi only knew about stealth and deception.

What they would experience on the Levels was a closely guarded secret, and the students rarely interacted.

Well, the students that were caught using sign language had all of their fingers broken, one after the other. In front of all of the students, including the newest one, named 'Ni'. Ni had winced and looked on in shock, and Shichi had watched in grim silence.

After all, that punishment was a favourite of Ishikawa's, although it would only be one finger.

The students had then been sent to the medic-station but had been denied a full and quick healing – they had instead been forced to wear splints, which was an extreme hindrance on both their training and ability to operate – no one in Root would deign to feed the students (or at least risk doing so and becoming the next Target) so they had struggled for a week, at which point the medic-nin consented to heal them properly.

It had certainly stopped all attempts at using sign language in their tracks, and Ni was severely disillusioned as to what went on in the RAD.

Shichi was bemused at the naming system though – the numbers seemed to follow no order in regards to who got which, but he suspected that it might have something to do with ninja that died in the field or graduated from the academy.

The language classes were held every day for three hours, and the sensei would talk through the whole lesson in that language, either distracting those that were trying to read or just plain inhibiting those that were trying to look up words or other things.

Shichi had taken a tape that he played at nights, and he would usually just sit there and listen to the sensei while practising the letters – he thought that he was starting to get the hang of it.

There was something in his mind telling him that he had already heard the language – he had taken to it almost _too_ easily, although he gave no hint of this to the instructors.

Well, not as if he would complain.

A kick to the shoulder and subsequent crashing into a tree effectively knocked Shichi out of his reverie.

He struggled up and slipped into a parody of his previously faultless stance; his limbs were wracked with involuntary tremors, his breathing came in harsh pants, blood sluggishly dripped from kunai stab wounds on his arm and shoulder and he was favouring his left leg.

Ishikawa-sensei snorted, "Psh, gaki; beating you up right now as you are wouldn't be even a little bit of a challenge. Get your scrawny ass to the medics– I heard ya haven't been to see them today."

Shichi didn't bother nodding because the crazy woman was already gone. He allowed himself a grimace as he started the painful hobble towards the medic-nin – it had become a ritual that he honestly dreaded.

But at least he had faired better this time.

He didn't know if he had gotten used to the pain and thus no longer felt it as sharply anymore or if he was actually improving, but if he had to guess, he'd say it was a little bit of both.

Kai made it to the medic-station and sat down to let the specialists take care of his injuries – he would bet that they were probably the most proficient in their area. After all, they had to be; what with all the practise they got.

Kai had at first found it extremely hard coping with the… _relentless_ training schedule and pain that was heaped on him during said training. At that moment, he could completely understand why many of his peers had become emotionless drones – after all, you can only experience so much pain until you decide to try and forgo it completely, right? When he had realised this, he had developed something to help him cope.

It was probably not the healthiest of approaches, but Kai began to think of himself as two different people. 'Kai' was who he was; his emotions, his goals – he held onto this part of himself desperately, not letting himself forget. When he was required to be an in-training shinobi, he would be 'Shichi'. As Shichi, he could take on anything – he was a shinobi, he was what they were training him to be. As Shichi, he would lock away 'Kai' to keep himself in tact and view almost everything from a clinical perspective.

He was both and neither at all times; the 'personas' melded together and emerged or descended as needed. This way, he could be a shinobi _and_ himself. It made it easier to do the things required of him if he did not think of it as himself doing them – it was Shichi of the RAD. It was a weird and convoluted twist of logic, but one that saved him from cracking under the stress like he had seen his classmates do.

Kai got out of the medic-station an hour later – they may have been good but they weren't miracle workers.

He made his way to the mess hall for dinner – he reckoned that he had already missed about half of it anyway.

As he strode into the hall, looking every bit the calm and collected shinobi, he was surprised that it was totally silent. Meal times were the best time to collect 'information' (or to gossip like all ninja were wont to do) so it was usually filled with sound – even if most of it was the student's attempts at English which were met with varying success.

He paused for a second, seeing that another newbie had arrived, before trailing over to collect his meal.

He glanced at the poor kid out of the corner of his eye.

Well, whoever this was, she had the company of Ni – after all, that kid hadn't gotten accepted into the fold just yet – he still got hit by kunai.

Kai's lips twisted into a sarcastic grin as he easily sat down next to Kyuu, who didn't even look up. It was really funny to him that they wouldn't count you as a Daisy until you could dodge a kunai coming at you from a blind spot – he seriously had no idea (nor did he want to know) why that particular hurdle was chosen. Shouldn't it have been first broken bone? First punishment from a sensei? Eh, how was he supposed to understand shinobi, anyway?

It would be silent for this meal, as it was part of the tried and true intimidation effects doled out to new students.

A part of the 'new student' gig was that any 'accepted' Daisy couldn't help them or associate with them until they could dodge the kunai. If you did, you were made 'Target' once again – that was actually what had gotten him attacked in his third week; the week that Ichi had arrived.

Kai ate in silence, not bothering to shoot glares at the newcomers, which were awkwardly communicating – after all, Ni wasn't allowed to speak Japanese and the new one didn't know that so she was whispering (quite loudly) at him.

Poor Ni.

Ah well, it wasn't his problem. Kai internally shrugged and just ignored the other student's antics – he didn't really see the point.

He finished up his meal quickly and sat back. A few moments later two very tall people kicked in the door and the new kid almost fell out of her seat. Kai rolled his eyes – those two were the language instructors and had a strange love of dramatics.

_He_ enjoyed the contrast between the usual 'sadistic bastard sensei', but he knew some of the others were disdainful of them – they thought they were clowns.

"COME! WE MUST ALL GO TO THE LIBRARY TO LEARN ENGLISH!" the red-haired man yelled, pointing his finger towards the ceiling.

The woman butted in, "YES! THE LIBRARY!"

This, of course, was roared in English, which half of the students didn't understand properly. The other half, which included Kai, were snickering at those that had looked at the body language and the sheer volume of their voices and came to the flawed conclusion that their eccentric sensei had decided to punish them or something stupid like that.

The woman raised an eyebrow, "Hurry up, hop to it, get out of here, bye-bye for now, smell ya later… well, you get the idea. Go!"

Kai rose to his feet and lazily made his way out of the hall, just following some of the other students that were eagre to show their understanding of the sensei's instructions. He idly thought that it was lucky Go had passed to the next Level a few weeks ago, otherwise that would have been very confusing for him.

He settled in for another difficult session with the customary piles of worksheets and books and sighed. He guessed he should probably be happy that doing this meant he couldn't practise anything else, but it really felt like the languages would never be any real help – apart from being able to say something that not everyone could understand, he guessed. Which was, of course, good for the shinobi profession.

He just wished it wasn't so damn hard.

**•◊ΰ◊•**

Dodge.

Duck.

_Move_.

Kick.

Push.

Dodge!

Throw!

Drop, roll.

Up.

Jump, punch.

Grab, pull.

Trip.

Slash.

ROLL!

Catch!

Behind, get Behind!

Jab, hit the point.

Uh oh…

!_C_R_AC_K!

"Itai…" Shichi rubbed the back of his head as he muttered to himself. Something invaded his field of vision and he went cross-eyed to see a hand in front of his face.

Or more specifically what that hand was holding.

Shichi went white, horrified. _That_ was an application to go to the next level. That had been exactly what he had managed to avoid for his whole time in the RAD – he hadn't _thought_ that he'd drawn attention to himself – after all, now that he'd gotten used to the routine, it was simple to just blend in.

He had actually broken a record for the longest stint in Level One – he had been there for a drum total of five and a half months, blowing the previous five-and-one-week out of the water. Students didn't generally hang around Level One – it was almost totally focused on physical conditioning and the basic arts, with the exception of the languages – and there was the slight problem that those that hang around were killed by some kind of stray weapon or by their sensei because they couldn't meet the grade.

It was a harsh cycle.

But Shichi had aimed to stay at Level One for as long as possible, and had spent the free-time that had emerged after he got accustomed to the harsh routine in the library, the main focus of his studies being finding out how to detect chakra. Knowing _when_ someone was trying to kill you was half the battle.

It had taken a full month to take what the scroll said and twist it to allow for his strange chakra, but he had managed it.

And was he relieved that he did! Only a week after that was the first Watcher. He called them Watchers because they had followed him around, but the skill in detecting them had allowed him to avoid 'unfortunate' accidents; 'stray' kunai that just happened to have been thrown far faster that any of the other Daisies were capable and always in blind spots. Another problem was the odd totally unpredictable movements from his sensei – like when she had hidden underneath him only to emerge sword-first.

Because in their minds, hesitation was as good as disloyalty, and the thing that the instructors repeated time and time again was the song and dance about being loyal to 'Danzo-sama', answering solely to Danzo-sama, and above all being better than the 'regular' Konoha shinobi.

…Yes, they preferred shinobi that chose to advance as quickly as possible, and generally tried to assassinate those that didn't – felt they were not worth the effort put into their training. Level One or the 'Daisy' Division of the RAD generally had a dozen trainees (the numbers changed regularly, from new entrants, deaths or promotions) and the standard time for recruits was four months – about the time they had learnt a bit of two languages, were able to perform at the required physical standard for more advanced training, and had the basics of throwing weapons and a taijutsu style down. Kai had been able to find out that there were two more levels in the RAD – the Second, called the 'Snapdragon' Division or more regularly the 'Snappers' were trained in stealth, deception, chakra manipulation, psychological warfare and tracking, and continued the languages from Level One. They were not taught anything further on taijutsu unless they were exceptionally good at it, and the only way to learn more was through the very frequent and cutthroat fights that regularly broke out between recruits. They were also assigned mock missions in the form of ghosting the Level One recruits to ensure adherence to the set rules, as well as looking for any possible dissent against Root and their ideals – in which case they were tasked with elimination.

Kai hadn't found out anything specific about Level Three and the training received there, but he knew that recruits were pulled out if they were useful in a specific task for specialised training to groom them for entrance into one of the other two divisions in Root – the RAU and the RID, 'RID' standing for Root Intelligence Division. He hadn't found out what 'RAU' stood for yet though. He had also heard nightmare tales about competitions incited by the sensei over learning specific jutsu – that the recruits had to battle every week and the victor would be taught a technique not available anywhere else, and if the others wanted to get the technique they resulted to blackmail, extortion, torture, mind tricks and anything else against the winner.

He hoped that it wasn't true.

Shichi was brought back to the crushing present by Ishikawa forcing the scroll into his hand, a venomous taint to her expression and radiating killing intent (which she did constantly) as she growled, "Report, Shichi. Level Two."

Apparently, there was not going to be a proper test for his 'graduation' onto the next stage, which could mean they either felt he was ready or they believed he'd be killed from getting in over his head.

They probably wouldn't find fault in either of the outcomes, the _bastards_.

Shichi bit the inside of his cheek to keep from visibly reacting though he knew his knuckles were white around the scroll. He did the only option available to him – he bowed silently and walked back to the low building that was the RAD.

**•◊ΰ◊•**

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_

And that's chapter 5! Yes, it's early, but I figured 'meh, why not post it?'

_Ok, in case I confused a lot of people, I'll include a short recap to pre-empt some questions:_

**Root**** is made up of Three Divisions: the RAD, RAU and RID.**

RID is the 'Root Intelligence Division' which is all the information provided as of yet

Root Academy Division (RAD) is made up of Three Levels, which focus on teaching different standard shinobi skill sets, and all have a plant-related nickname that serves as a kind of 'code' to confuse outsiders. The first Two Levels are summarised as follows:

**LEVEL ONE**: Physical conditioning, taijutsu, throwing weapons (mostly kunai) and languages. A.K.A 'Daisy Division'

**LEVEL TWO**: Stealth, deception, tracking, chakra manipulation, psychological warfare, languages. A.K.A 'Snapdragon Division' or 'Snappers'.

The Third Level has not been explained as of yet.

Code Numbers are assigned to recruits, usually given at random. The ones mentioned in this chapter were Kai's Shichi (Seven), San (Three), Hachi (Eight), Juuichi (Eleven), Go (Five), Roku (Six), Kyuu (Nine), Ni (Two) and Ichi (One). _(***Note: 'Kyuu' is not Naruto***)_

Of the sensei mentioned, only one went by a number; Hyaku (One Hundred) who is in charge of Rock natured recruits. Ishikawa (detailed to Water natured) and Aoki (Assigned to Fire natured) were the others.

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* * *

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~Ok. I hope that cleaned up any problems or whatever with complicated descriptions.

_BTW, did you know I've gotten 35 alerts and only 14 reviews? If I get double the amount of reviews, I'll post the next chapter early as well :)_

_-Skyflyte12_


	6. An Ally

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Harry Potter

Posted: Thursday, 24 December 2009

(Merry Christmas Everybody!)

An Ally

Chapter 6

**•◊ΰ◊•**

Level Two, Kai found out, was literally on the second level of the building, hidden under a genjutsu that made it invisible for an onlooker (casual or otherwise) to see it.

The layout was an exact copy of the floor below; the only difference being the books available to recruits which focused primarily on the subjects taught to the Snappers. If they wanted to look at any books on the floor below, they had to avoid the Daisy's detection, and if caught they were punished excessively – usually by the disabling of one arm or both for a set period of time, which equated to a death sentence in such an environment, or at least a promise of excessive injuries. As such, hardly any Snapper was caught, either because of skill or not taking the risk in the first place.

The routine was harsher than Level One and the sensei were absolutely vicious in training – which could be seen in the sheer number of different ways that you could stuff up and get beaten down. They made all the recruits go through a brutal obstacle course where the object was to be as fast, stealthy and silent as possible (to survive the trip through) and be pushed to the very limits of their chakra manipulation abilities – Kai hadn't known anything about 'tree walking' his first run through, and had had to improvise by moving his chakra around to enhance his muscles _a lot_ more than he had ever done before, which resulted in being laid-up for two days in the medic-station with first degree chakra burns…

**•◊ΰ◊•**

"Oh, are you waiting for mummy to lead you by the hand, brat? I SAID _GO_! GET TO IT, SHICHI!"

The shrill and offensive words cracked the veneer that Shichi had been building up around himself, mainly concentrating on the words _'this is not happening to me' _and the variations thereof.

At the end of the very first meal (full of tension, suffering under the calculating glares from the ten other recruits in the Level) one of the perfect 'robot-shinobi' had just _appeared_ in the middle of the room, announcing that Senman-sensei was awaiting their arrival.

Kai had never met a sensei dubbed 'Senman', but the way the other recruits had smirked and eyed him had sent alarm bells ringing.

They had exited the mess, and he'd had to follow the others as they ghosted out at a faster pace than he was used to and into the intimidating forest that surrounded the compound.

It was dark as the trees ensured that no light from the stars or moon could shine through and help with visibility and Kai had not been able to avoid practically ploughing through the underbrush. He had felt quite self-conscious (not to mention frustrated) that he was making more noise than all the others put together – it looked like silent passage was going on his List.

They'd stopped in a narrow, albeit long, clearing that had what was obviously the Obstacle Course from Hell in it. Kai thought the post with tape wrapped around the top looked like a starting point, and right after that was a massive wall that looked to be almost completely smooth – there were very few places to get a hand-hold, and Kai felt something stirring within him that had been a constant companion of his over the last few months – fear.

Senman had quickly shooed the others 'to their positions' – which Shichi had been unable to see but could sense them in the trees, most likely looking down on the Course from high perches.

Shichi viciously shoved those thoughts aside and focused completely on the present, tensing hard-earned muscles and surging towards the daunting wall, just managing to avoid the kunai that impacted with the tree that he had been standing in front of thrown by Senman to 'get him moving'.

Shichi had seconds to devise the best approach at scaling the wall, and he felt for his chakra, still cool and smooth against his senses, concentrating it to strengthen his legs as he crouched and used his propulsion to leap almost half-way up.

He hit the wall hard, scrabbling for one terrifying second to cling to the indentation. His right foot hit on another and he crouched again, springing off it and up with as much force as his control would allow.

He repeated these desperate movements, succeeding in clearing less and less space each time before only a manageable distance to the top was left, at which point he bit his lip and climbed to the peak.

He was shaking and distantly aware of the sweat building at his temples as he spared one look down the dizzying height.

//Swoosh//

Attuned as he was to the sound of weapons, the noise wasn't hard to pick and his head jerked backwards, the glinting steel passing only a hands-width away from his eyes reminding him harshly not to look back.

Soft whistling reached his ears, and he sprung back and around from the edge of the wall, dragging himself up and getting his first look at the rest of the course.

His mouth went dry.

Logs, all hanging from thick wires, _swinging_ already in the wind (which worryingly wasn't all that strong as it passed through the trees) lay out in front of him as far as he could see. There was at least a two metre gap from each log to the next, none on the same height.

When he looked down he could see rocks as the material to catch his fall.

Sending up a prayer to kami or whoever happened to be listening, he lurched forward, using chakra to propel him once again.

The log he landed on made a very loud //_crrreeaaakkk// _sound, lurched downwards as it caught his weight and started to swing alarmingly from side-to-side.

The bottom of his stomach fell out as his feet slipped and he fell. The only good thing this action brought was the avoidance of the eleven kunai that sliced through the place his body and head had been bare seconds before.

He reached out and grabbed the next log that came within his reach and, more prepared for the reaction to his weight, ignored the loud sound and lurching, instead swinging up so he had his feet under him again.

Not given time to collect himself, he winced as a kunai sliced through his upper leg.

After that, the Course to him was a blur.

With no way to get a sure purchase on the erratically swinging logs, he often slipped and it was only through sheer dumb luck that he was always in a position to grab another on his way down.

Shichi couldn't recall just _how_ he'd managed to get through the Hell Course, but he _did _remember the burning of his legs as he forced too much chakra through them in order to reach just the _next_ log, to _keep going_, _don't stop_, jerk to the side to avoid the head-shot of a passing kunai…

He occasionally caught sight of his tormentors – the other Level Two recruits and the sensei; a glint of armour, the white of an eye, a flash of passing hair… his mind tried to follow the ghosts, but they clamped down on their chakra past his limit to sense it as he got more and more exhausted, almost mindlessly going on and _on_.

Don't Stop.

'I _WILL get out… these _shinobi _WILL NOT kill me!'_

To Shichi, that Hell-Course seemed to encompass hours, days… it seemed to have no ending as he kept pulling himself up, kept going, clinging onto his vicious _need_ to survive if only so he could _spite_ Root and that 'Danzo' when he _escaped_.

Because he would.

No matter how impossible it seemed, no matter how many restrictions they placed on him or how many stupid shinobi rules they shoved down his throat He. Would. Escape.

Because that was the only option.

The rushing in his ears cleared as he dragged himself raggedly past a stump with a piece of tape tied around the top, and he collapsed to the ground, wounds oozing dark red blood sluggishly as it seeped through tears in his clothing.

"20.25 minutes! _HORRIBLE_, SHICHI! ABSOLUTELY UNNACCEPTABLE FOR A LEVEL TWO RECRUIT! Heh, I'm kinda surprised ya even got through it, maggot – what, can't use chakra to stick yet? Next time, you _better_ do that faster or _else_, got it? Cut five minutes off your time or you really aren't worth using for target practise for the other recruits!"

The scathing voice was distant to Shichi, who could not find the strength to drag himself up off the ground. His legs were on fire, he still had at least three separate kunai lodged in his flesh and numerous flesh wounds from where he hadn't quite been able to avoid the missiles.

Senman's lips tightened as he stared down at the lump at his feet before he snorted derisively, moving his gaze to the other recruits which stood around the fallen one, narrowing his eyes; "All of you better know by now not to replicate that poor attempt. Shi! Drag newbie there to the medics and get back here _quick_ – it's your turn after Juuni runs through, and _so help you if you aren't here by then…_" His last words were growled out, and the recruit slung the unconscious one over his shoulder before setting off in a burst of speed, like expected.

Senman growled his orders out to the rest, having them speed back to the start before re-positioning and getting Juuni to start it.

Even as he casually slung kunai at the recruit, who succeeded in being somewhat more collected while navigating the maze of logs, a part of his mind was shrewdly calculating.

Despite what he'd verbalised, Shichi had actually performed admirably at his current level. They deliberately didn't teach recruits how to use chakra to stick to objects before they participated in this course, and that was mainly to analyse their ability to improvise and the raw talent they possessed for the shinobi arts – how much nerve they had, how far they would push to complete orders… you could gauge all this plainly by throwing recruits into that death-trap before they had the skills necessary to do it well.

He'd seen many recruits burn-out before they even managed to scale the wall – collapsing, or missing a foot-hold and knocking themselves out upon impact with the ground. Most, however, crashed on the logs, which were trussed up, swinging and noisy, making it simple for the others to skewer them with their kunai (well, if they weren't so pathetic at accuracy)… all in all, very few newbies reached the end at all, and there was a 60% chance of death for the first run through from the start.

Hey, Root had high standards and it was better to get rid of the dregs before so much effort was put into them. Only the best were graduated and presented to Danzo-sama for designation and orders.

It would be… _interesting_ to see how Shichi improved.

**•◊ΰ◊•**

Kai half-limped out of the medic-wing and threw a scowl over his shoulder two days after his first run through the Hell-Course. It turned out he had first-degree chakra burns and stress fractures in his legs, even ignoring his newest collection of flesh wounds from the thrown kunai.

Kai decided that he _hated_ this place from the bottom of his shinobi-detesting heart.

"You know, you probably shouldn't be mean to the medics."

Kai's head whipped around, and his eyes widened at seeing distinctive red hair and brown eyes; "J-Juu!"

In the very first week Kai had discovered the significance of Taiki giving out his actual name when he introduced himself. It was just about the biggest and worst indiscretion a recruit could make, and meant instant abortion from the program in the form of a quick kunai to the heart.

Names had no business in Root. In Root, you were a number, not a person. The only time they used your name was the day they introduced you into the RAD, after you passed the preliminary test – and not ever again.

Now that Kai had his wits about him, he could afford to notice more about his first contact in the RAD (well the first that wasn't a robot anyway). Juu was also the first that had expressed bluntly that he was like-minded in that he had no wish to be in Root – and Kai was fairly sure he wasn't lying either; there would have been nothing in it for him to lie to a fresh Daisy – it was more risk than anything he could possibly hope to gain out of it.

Juu had a thin face and now that Kai could see him clearly, his hair appeared to be more of a reddish-brown than red. Juu was also at least two heads taller than him, with thicker arms and a stocky build that pointed towards a proficiency in hand-to-hand combat.

Juu smiled slightly down at Kai and continued from what he was saying before the interruption, "The medics can hold a grudge, you know – I heard that they refused to heal that snot Hachi when he broke his arm and that's why he failed."

For Kai, this was a strange conversation. Juu's expression shifts were miniscule, but this was probably the longest conversation he'd been directly involved in for six months – in other words, since before he was bundled into the RAD. Of course, he hadn't known what had happened to his Level One tormenter either. He decided to settle on ignoring the stuff about medic-nin and said cautiously, "It's good to see you, Juu."

A corner of Juu's mouth twitched into something resembling a smirk, and the boy's hand whipped up and ruffled Kai's messy hair, "You too, Shichi. Now, I heard you sucked on the Course."

Kai winced and he suddenly found a spot on the ground very interesting, "I don't know the wall-walking thing – one of the medic-nin mentioned that's what would help with it. But I don't know how I'm gonna make it through that again."

Juu's voice cut through his despair, "Well, I don't know about you, but I think I might need to revise it."

Kai's head shot up that couldn't have been what he thought, could it?

Juu's brown eyes rolled slightly and he turned around, calling over his shoulder, "Come on, Shichi – you won't last long if you can't control your chakra." And then he set off towards a close copse of trees that was dedicated to such training.

Kai hesitated slightly; months full of painful 'training' had taken its toll on his ability to trust anyone, but in the end he followed Juu – after all, he'd probably not survive another such run, and he had no idea where to start trying to find out how to do the exercise.

He decided to put his trust in the older boy… after all, no one could take on the world alone.

**•◊ΰ◊•**

_Well, I figured since it's Christmas Eve and all that I'd be nice and post this a day early :) _

_I want to say a big and resounding 'thank-you' to everyone who has reviewed this for me, I really appreciate knowing that people like what I've been writing, and I enjoy the feedback_

_I guess all that's left to say is 'Merry Christmas'_

_-skyflyte12_


	7. The Spectre

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Harry Potter

Timeline: Kai is now eight years old

Posted: Saturday, 21 August 2010

The Spectre

Chapter 7

**•◊****ΰ◊•**

_Two and a half years Later_

Kai was reclining in front of the television in an empty break room – one of many that were scattered about the complex, even if not many of the shinobi put them to use –mindlessly watching a cartoon that was on.

He idly wondered if, had he not been forced into Root, he would have actually enjoyed the show for entertainment value instead of for the escapism value – being able to imagine himself into one of the character's lives and not think about his rapidly growing body count, and the ever present feeling of blood being on his hands.

_No_. He told himself. _Don't_ _think_ _about_ _it_.

He had already sensed the intruder approaching before the door slid open. His eyes darted to the frankly unwelcome person, and he didn't even bother to remove his feet from the furniture.

His eyes flicked back to the screen, pointedly ignoring the intruder.

Measured footsteps moved into the room.

Kai made no move when the figure stood in front of the television, obstructing his view.

The person moved his arm to get something from his equipment pouch, and Kai tensed slightly, prepared to protect himself should it be some kind of sadistic test.

He saw the object that the shinobi removed and his eyes flickered.

_He was a shadow, invisible to the shinobi he approached. He made a few quick handsigns and carefully settled the genjutsu into his victim's minds._

_It was one impossible to differentiate from reality._

It was a book.

_Dull steel glinted under the soft moonlight as it bit into the neck of his first victim._

Not just any book – a Bingo Book.

_The job finished and the camp of thirty shinobi lay dead, silenced as per mission orders._

Darkening green eyes stared up into his closest friend's brown eyes, seeking something although even he didn't know what. It took someone who knew Taiki inside and out to see the concern visible in the brown orbs – after all, emotion was a punishable offence for one of his position in Root.

Kai's hands shook slightly as he reached for the innocent-looking book.

_But… What was that? Shichi pales as he realises with no small amount of horror that he has missed one – probably a scout but definitely a jounin, if the heavy vest was anything to go by._

_The man stares at his fallen comrades in disbelief. Shichi sees the exact moment that shock and horror turns to rage, as the man's hatred-filled eyes spot him standing amongst the bodies and he lunges forward, drawing a katana._

Kai hesitates, holding the book in front of him. He steels himself and opens it, moving through the pages slowly, searching.

_Shichi stands no chance. Taijutsu has never been his specialty and only his unnatural speed is saving his life – but it can not hold out indefinitely, and as the other shinobi's rage builds, so does the forcefulness and vehemence of his attacks._

_The katana had been traded for fists, and Shichi winces as a fist cracks at least two ribs and sends him crashing into a tree._

Kai stops on a page that is newly added. His stomach clenches and he forces down bile, disgusted with himself and what his life has become.

_Shichi struggles to his feet. The other shinobi is momentarily distracted by the face of one of the fallen shinobi, and the genjutsu master takes his chance to escape with his life._

_As the shunshin which has been carefully crafted to betray no village allegiance activates, the other shinobi stares at Shichi in utter hatred, a silent but potent accusation in the gaze and the hiss of "Monster" reaches his ears even as he escapes his death._

The page in the book names Kai "the Spectre" and there is a short but fairly accurate listing of height and weight – which wasn't really worrying, as it could fit any number of young ninja. The most disturbing feature is the description_. "The Spectre is a shinobi of unclear origins, named for the massacre of thirty chuunin to jounin ranked ninja of Iwagakure. The Spectre is assumed to be highly competent at genjutsu and is known to reach extremely high speeds, thus almost becoming 'ghost-like' to enemy shinobi. Talents seem to lie in assassination. Weakness is taijutsu, and proficiency in ninjutsu is unknown. Wanted in Iwa, Kusa and Kiri for proved or suspected crimes against the Kage."_

Kai's green eyes were dark as he read and re-read his page in the Bingo book. They had him as a B-ranked ninja, which admittedly was one good thing – they had underestimated him. His one saving grace was that they did not know his village affiliation – any root ninja that were uncovered so completely were either killed by allies or enemies, generally for the bounty it produced – Root was always looking for more finances, after all. That happened, because when the shinobi was too easily identified it was better to not run the risk of exposing the organisation as a whole.

They also did not have a completely accurate account of what he had been forced to do – there had been other jobs in different countries, although the last and his first unfixable blunder had been the mission with the most risk and importance behind it. Those Iwa ninja had come too close to Konoha's borders, and he was the shinobi given the despicable task to kill them, removing the threat – he had had to report his failure in that he had been unable to dispose of them all, but it had also been a success in that he wasn't captured and had deterred the ninja from Fire Country, without being linked to its forces… not that he even technically was anyway.

Even if the task had apparently been of 'noble' intentions, this did not ease the guilt or sheer disgust that Kai held for every single assassination he had been ordered to complete.

The numbers, faces, names… they were all piling up, engraving themselves on his memory.

The instructors had said that killing in the line of duty was honourable, was expected, was easy.

Kai knew that killing was _never _easy. He had thrown up after the first murder, and had been fortunate that the partner assigned to him had been Taiki – his one friend within the organisation and the one root shinobi that would not punish him for being 'human'. They were closer than brothers.

Taiki had given him the best advice after his stomach had settled and while handing him a canteen to wash out the vile taste.

He had said all that time ago when they had been Level Two recruits in the RAD, to hold onto the disgust and horror that he felt then, because taking lives would become easier and this feeling now would later remind him that he was human. Something that Root should never and could never take away, if he did not allow it.

And Kai had found that Taiki was right, as he usually was.

It _had_ gotten easier, no matter that the desensitisation was almost as horrifying as the initial disgust and revulsion caused by his first experience.

He was helpless. He didn't want to kill, but it was required of him. And he knew that he didn't want to die, which would be what would happen if he didn't fight, didn't kill.

He had been desensitised, but he still didn't want to do it.

And now that he had been given a name – 'infamy' and all that rot – his future missions had just became all the more difficult, all the more risky, all the more dangerous.

He had yet to do a completely solo mission.

Kai knew that, ready or not, they would attempt to abandon Root at the first window of opportunity – just as soon as his and Taiki's retainers got lax.

True to Taiki's word, they had broken down the seal and were confident that it could not be used to kill them… although it _did _stop them from ever mentioning Root or Danzo.

A hand appeared in his field of vision, closing the book that he had been staring sightlessly at for the last few minutes.

"So, The Spectre, eh? At least it doesn't involve 'butcher'."

Kai blinked, slowly looking up at Taiki's bland face. "D-did you just try to make a _joke_, Ju-kun? Because you know that's four degrees of creepy right there."

Taiki frowned a little, before his hand twitched like he was repressing some instinctive reaction. "Shichi?" He asked in a bland tone.

The black haired boy looked up at him and drawled, "Yessss?"

The taller boy deadpanned, "Shut up."

Kai pouted and shoved Taiki out of the way of the television, pointedly ignoring the bingo book.

Kai listened to Taiki's light footsteps trailing to the door, and when they stopped as if waiting for something allowed his eyes to land on the brown-eyed boy that had somehow become like an older brother to him.

The shinobi said, "Danzo-sama wanted to see you."

At with those words, Kai's blood froze.

It was never good when the leader of Root wanted a face-to-face.

**•◊****ΰ◊•**

_A/N: Hey peoples! Yes, I know, it's incredibly bad of me to leave this for as long as I have. I was just kinda stuck. So, after forever and ever I finally just said 'screw it' and decided to publish this, though I am skipping over some interesting things that happened between Kai getting into the Snappers and him becoming a fully initiated Root Shinobi (tongue seal jutsu and all). I'll find a way to put in the relevant facts in future chapters, but I hope you enjoy – and if there's anything you don't get (horribly) chuck it in a review and I'll try to work some form of explanation into the next chapter._

**Timeline:**

Record of Recruit no.1043

codename "Shichi"

5yrs -Inducted into RAD, Level One

5½yrs -RAD Level Two

6yrs -RAD Level Three

7yrs - Active Agent, assigned RAU


End file.
